Friday, April 30, 2010

I want! I want! I want!

I want to be a kid again. With parents who have money. And I want it now. I was blog surfing; that's what you do when you are too weak to do much else even knitting and you find a blog out of the blue, and as you scroll down the page you find a reference to having acquired the last of the Anker (anchor in English) building sets. Castles, churches, bridges, each built from custom built stones made from chalk, quartz sand, pigment, and linseed oil leading back to the early 1800s. Loved by grown ups and kids alike. I suspect, the hobby is a little bit like model trains. Dads buy them for their children because they never had one. Like many German manufactured items, they are overbuilt and each set of building stones comes in its own wooden box. The bad thing is they are available in the US, even endorsed by former President Bill Clinton.



Starter Set
With added purchases you can build the next buildings or use your imagination and design your own buildings. Even Einstein played with them.









I looked at the prices and, darn it, they are still too expensive for me, unless I close my eyes and not pay my taxes, get my septic tank looked after, my roof fixed and my car brought back to good running conditions. But there is no way I can bring myself to do that. The responsibility genes are too well developed in me. Could the superego just once disappear? I want to play. No chance.
For those who want to have a look at this play paradise and may be get any grand children you have hooked on them, here is the original German site. The site can be read in any language you desire. The second site is one of the US sites I found where you can buy the sets. I put "Anker Building block" in Google to come up with all kinds of links.
http://www.ankerstein.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=17&lang=english

http://www.johnwsheetz.com/anker-stone-blocks.html

Go and play some.

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I wander what it would be like have grown up with a few luxuries. Happy Birthday!!!!! and I hope that you feel better soon.

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  2. That are really nice stones. I have one little, very old set from someone in my family and like it very much. Send you greetings from germany!

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